


Shorts Part One

by StarlightAsteria



Series: Shorts [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Comedy, House Cup 2015, Mythology - Freeform, Originally posted on HPFF, Prose Poem, The Headless Hunt, Triwizard Tournament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 05:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11684817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightAsteria/pseuds/StarlightAsteria
Summary: Mr Weasley has an unusual encounter with a rubber duck, Lucius Malfoy plays chess, Fleur Delacour strategises, and the Headless Hunt... hunts.





	1. The Quaken

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Everyone!
> 
> This is a pretty old collection, which I first wrote in 2015 when I was still active on HPFF, and I thought it might be an idea to transfer everything over onto here. These were originally competition entries, for which the prompt was 'Games'. 
> 
> This is me just having a bit of lighthearted fun (GASP! SHOCK! HORROR! - but even I need a break from the angst/politics/romance occasionally ;) ) and as always, I'd be delighted to hear what you think!

* * *

 

 

_THE QUAKEN_

 

* * *

 

 

There once was a wizard named Weasley, who thought that playing muggle Fish the Duck sounded rather too easy. So he went into a shop down an alley, whose owner, it must be said, was rather sleazy.

 

“Look here, old chap,” he said, “what I’m looking for is this: a rubber duck to play a game with a bit of a bite or a hiss.

 

“Ah!” the shopkeeper replied. “I’ve just the thing - this you can’t dismiss!” And Mr Weasley esq. duly bought it.

 

But when the shop was empty once more, the keeper noticed his mistake and loudly, crassly swore:

“O drat and damn it all! He’s the client I must adore; for singular client - he buys it all, and now he’ll come no more.

 

“For now I’ve sold him that thingy, that blasted rubber duck I always knew would be the death of me, he’ll come to my shop no more, O rats and dinghies! And I’ve only myself to blame, so there’ll be no pity.”

 

At this point in time, dear reader, the story, it must be noted, must necessarily become rather gory. For the Quaken has come, in all his rubber duck glory, and so there can only be one end to the story.

 

But we digress: it was a warm summer’s day, and Arthur Weasley had arranged it all for his bit of play. The rubber duck on the pond at the garden bottom floating lay, quiet and still, with destiny still far away.

 

And suddenly the rod is cast, flung high into the sky, and like a pendulum comes down fast, a sword through air and rubber, a flashing dance, and Mr. Weasley has hooked the duck at last.

 

The duck’s eyes flash, the water ripples, the ground trembles, trees sway, a fell, devilishly icy wind in the garden whistles, and under the water, calm mirror no longer, something rises: full of life, full of vengeance, and full of rather nasty surprises.

 

For though he’s made of rubber, there’s the following to be understood: though he looks like a children’s toy, and all that must be sweet and good, once the old witch’s curse is lit like firewood, he is the Quaken, and deadly, and must be anything but sweet and good.

 

For he is the Quaken, that ancient monster, that accursed, and poor Mr Weasley, struggling with the fishing rod that hooked the beast, must now resign himself: he’s toast, he’s ash, he’s utterly cooked. True to form indeed, beneath those waves, treacherous and turquoise, both man and beast have plunged.

 

There, amongst the pondweed and curious golden carp, is his tomb, his sepulchre, dark and dank and green and utterly without heart. For not amongst coral does he lie, a full fathom deep, listening to beguiling music of the harp. 

 

Take note, dear reader, for when you tangle with the Quaken, if you must, the cut is rather sharp.

 

And what of the Quaken, now that his foe is vanquished and vanished? 

 

Well, he is a rubber duck after all, and has for years in shop-backs and attics languished,

And must do so again, until completely famished.

 

Thus ends the tale of the wizard and the Quaken.

 

* * *

 

 


	2. Such a Delicate Little Flower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fleur engages in a bit of reminiscing and planning as the Triwizard Tournament starts. 
> 
> character-study.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fleur has always been one of my favourite characters from canon, because she's so much more than the pretty Veela everyone judges her as, so underestimated and dismissed by most of the other characters, including Hermione and Ginny.

* * *

 

 

_SUCH A DELICATE LITTLE FLOWER_

 

* * *

 

 

When her name is drawn from the Cup, she smiles prettily, letting her eyes show some of the pride and excitement she’s feeling, but she is careful to remain every inch the lady. She’s a Delacour, of Beauxbatons, and it is expected of her. Glancing at her Headmistress, she sees eager, greedy pride leeching from every pore, apparent in the overly enthusiastic clapping, and she wants to roll her eyes in annoyance.

 

Madame Maxime may be her Headmistress, but she flatters herself if she thinks that she’s going to allow the woman to take any credit for her own actions, past or present. Madame Maxime is a very effective figurehead, but she remains merely that: a figurehead. It would be an affront to her own dignity, to her own sense of self, and it would not reflect well upon her family. 

 

She’s never wanted this. Not personally, but it is expected of her, so she’s not going to go down without a fight. 

 

Her name is Fleur Delacour, a pretty, ladylike sort of name. People look at her and see her beauty, they see her exquisite manners, and don’t bother looking more closely. They see in her a paragon of virtue, of the perfection of the womanly form, and don’t care about the intelligence that glitters in those sky-blue eyes, or that her hearts beats and bleeds with love for her family. 

 

So she walks calmly across the Great Hall to the dais, feeling hundreds of eyes on her, some curious, some jealous, some proud, but all in some way assessing, and she wants to flinch, to lash out and give them a piece of her mind. But that would be a terrible reputation for her to acquire,and she doesn’t want to be remembered as the contestant who started shrieking at people before the first task. She has nothing to prove, to _anyone._

 

Then the Durmstrang champion is called, and the Cup’s choice is so obvious now: Victor Krum. Of course it would be the international Quidditch star who is Karkaroff’s pride and joy. She almost pities him, knowing only too well what it is like being the reluctant protégé of an older witch or wizard, but his reaction to being chosen is arrogant, almost victorious, and any pity she holds in her heart withers and dies an immediate and careless death. It tells her much, as does Karkaroff’s leering, smug grimace of a smile. Aside from Durmstrang’s reputation for the Dark Arts, it tells her they are formidable opponents. 

 

She directs a dazzling smile at Krum, fluttering her eyelashes, a violent surge of triumph racing through her veins when his eyes widen and the pale beginnings of a blush steal across his cheeks. There. Let them believe she is nothing more than a beautiful girl who was selected because she enjoys conjuring flowers. She would prefer not to have to exercise her charms on the opposition, but she knows that that is how the British press will portray her anyway. The decision was made as soon as she appeared in the elegant sky-blue uniform that reflects the clouds in her eyes, as soon as Rita Skeeter got a good look at her legs and her softly curled blonde hair. 

 

But you use what you have, and she’d be a fool not to use her looks. But how and when will be her decision and no-one else’s, especially not Madame Maxime’s. It rather suits her to let her male opponents think of her that way. Let them believe she’s just doing it for the attention, the fame, the glory, the inevitable modelling contracts. She’ll be left alone during tasks, then, and that suits her. Let them fight it out amongst themselves, Victor Krum, Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter, and she’ll waltz in behind them, still looking alluring after having been through the wars, and steal victory from underneath their noses.    

 

It’s a binding magical contract, so she has no choice. But she’s going to do this on her own terms, with her own strategies, and remind them all that she is so much more than a pretty little flower.

 

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do tell me what you thought!


	3. Black and White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucius Malfoy remains a master of the game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're all enjoying this little collection; it appears I can't do my games without angst after all. Please do tell me what you think!

* * *

 

 

_BLACK AND WHITE_

 

* * *

 

 

He’s always thought that wizard’s chess, of all games, perhaps best represents humanity. On either side of the board are black and white pieces, with different stations in life, different ambitions, different purposes. But life is not static, and so it is when pieces actually start moving and interacting that he thinks that the metaphor really applies.

 

Because nothing is so simple as mere monochrome black and white. 

 

To be sure, people label each other all the time; and he is as guilty of that as anyone else. But they also have a reductive ability. The label becomes the person, the person the label, and all sense of individuality is lost. All sense of who the person was before is lost, forever, to the depths of time and dust, dust and words are eventually all that remains. 

 

He’s seen it happen around him. To Bellatrix, to Rabastan, Rodolphus, to all of them. Becoming Death Eaters, the branding of the Mark on their arms, has reduced them to mere pawns, incapable of independent thought, and only capable of violence.

 

But not him, somehow, he’s resisted, in this cell, though he does not pretend to have been imprisoned as long as the others. Perhaps he is looking at his future when he sees them. 

 

But there is one thing he has that they have lost: determination. Determination to get out of there, this dank, humid cell that is frozen in winter by the howling, glacial North Sea winds, and damp in summer from the moisture in the air around him. Determination to get back to his family. Determination not to sink to the mindless, slave-like level his fellows have demonstrated. He can barely call them that, for he feels no affinity, no kinship for them beyond the infernal ink in his arm that binds them all more tightly and more hatefully that he cares to think about.

 

And so, to while away the time, though without a board, he plays chess, and his mind becomes a field of contrasting squares, of white and black, and light and dark, and the two melded together. But the knight’s voice is the same as the pawn’s and the bishop’s, because all the voices are his own. He plays against himself, having no other opponent. He tells himself it is to keep his mental faculties sharp, his scheming brain occupied in a constructive way to pass the time, so that he does not have to think about the life he has left behind. So he does not have to think about his wife, alone in that Manor of theirs, walking through empty room after empty, silent room, rattling around in that house that is far too large for their family. So that he does not have to think about their son, who has been punished for his father’s failures by being assigned an impossible task that can only lead to his death.

 

Of course, it is all of those things. But it is also a mental fight against solitude, a desire to be surrounded by life, by people, yet all that can be managed is that chess board with its contrasting pieces. A pale, monochrome mockery of life, devoid of colour, going from stasis to movement with inevitable certainty, leading to inevitable endings. 

 

But the petty illusion is all Lucius Malfoy can summon, and so paltry as it is, he knows it is infinitely better than nothing at all. 

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, reviews are love!

**Author's Note:**

> reviews & kudos are love, as always


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